Can I leave my van on hook up while I'm a away for a couple of weeks?

[Boswell Bear]

My Westfalia Amundsen has a CBE CB-516 charger with DS-300 Distribution Board charging both leisure and van batteries. Reading a online manual suggests this charger has 6 phases Desulphation, Bulk, Absorption, Float, Standby and Refresh, does this mean it's OK to leave it plugged in while I'm away for a couple weeks to keep all the batteries maintained?
The leisure batteries are AGM and I believe the van battery is a Exide E-1100 110 A/H 850-CAA would this be an issue if the charger is set to AGM?

​

 

[Landy Andy]

My van is on 240v permanently when not being used.

 

[Brains]

For the sake of an outlay of about £3, go an buy a simple time clock, like you use on Xmas tree lights.
That way it will only charge for one hour a day (or whatever you set it to)

Get a £10 time clock that does days of the week, and it may be better to 4-6 hours one day of the week.

 

[Landy Andy]

I’ve know plenty of £3 time clocks not to work.

 

[Brains]

I’ve know plenty of £3 time clocks not to work.

Splash out!
Get a £5 one!

I have about a dozen in use at any one time, they do fail eventually, but that is measured in years.
If the ticking gets really noisy, I replace them, but even the cheap ones will last 3-4 years of constant use.

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[Gerry77]

That’s what I do. Set timer for two hours during nighttime cheap electricity!

 

[Boswell Bear]

That’s what I do. Set timer for two hours during nighttime cheap electricity!

Good shout, I’m on an EV tariff.

 

[Landy Andy]

Splash out!
Get a £5 one!

I have about a dozen in use at any one time, they do fail eventually, but that is measured in years.
If the ticking gets really noisy, I replace them, but even the cheap ones will last 3-4 years of constant use.

Why. Just leave it plugged in and the charger will do what it’s designed to do.

Wife bought two timers for Xmas. Both failed. One didn’t even last one rotation.

 

[barryd]

Never leave mine plugged in or the old van. Never seemed to cause an issue although to be fair both the old van and the new one have solar. Surely it would be fine for a couple of weeks.

 

[POH]

I have the TP plug in timers that you can set to whatever time you want or you can set from your phone from anywhere via your data or WiFi also have them to turn the lights on/off better that the clockwork ones.

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[nicholsong]

Remeber toturn off the 12v circuit as that is more likely to be a fire risk. I try to remember to do that every time we leave the MH unattended. It is off now even in our yard.

 

[Richard n Ann]

Get a low powered maintainer like optimate duo 1. It's not powerful enough to ever cause a problem, you can leave it on 24/7 and relax

 

[rambo]

fit a shut of switch at battery then the battery wont drain or disconect while not useing van

 

[AdrianChen]

My Westfalia Amundsen has a CBE CB-516 charger with DS-300 Distribution Board charging both leisure and van batteries. Reading a online manual suggests this charger has 6 phases Desulphation, Bulk, Absorption, Float, Standby and Refresh, does this mean it's OK to leave it plugged in while I'm away for a couple weeks to keep all the batteries maintained?
The leisure batteries are AGM and I believe the van battery is a Exide E-1100 110 A/H 850-CAA would this be an issue if the charger is set to AGM?

​

Should be fine - The cbe-516 charger will shut off after 15h on float, and will re-start when the battery drops a little below 13v for 1hr on bulk so once charged it maintains the battery at around 13v. AFAIK if the main panel is left on then the start battery will trickle charge whenever the leisure battery hits 13.5v.

The start battery will get a higher voltage than ideal from the CBE, but its for relatively short periods and has been getting that treatment whenever your using the van on hookup, so should be OK as well. You could isolate the start battery I suppose, but that would also turn off any alarm and tracker.

 

[denisejoe]

Remeber toturn off the 12v circuit as that is more likely to be a fire risk. I try to remember to do that every time we leave the MH unattended. It is off now even in our yard.

Switching off 12v power will drain any water left in the van as it will open the frost protection valve

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[Abgs]

I have the TP plug in timers that you can set to whatever time you want or you can set from your phone from anywhere via your data or WiFi also have them to turn the lights on/off better that the clockwork ones.

These … we have for the van charger. Has been working faultlessly for the last four years. About a tenner from Screwfix I think.

 

[Brains]

Never leave mine plugged in or the old van. Never seemed to cause an issue although to be fair both the old van and the new one have solar. Surely it would be fine for a couple of weeks.

Modern Solar and a battery master are fine.
Both my batteries remain fully topped up all year round, even when parked in shade.

 

[autorouter]

The leisure batteries are AGM and I believe the van battery is a Exide E-1100 110 A/H 850-CAA would this be an issue if the charger is set to AGM?

AGM batteries should have an absorption stage that is extended by a timer, rather than cut off when the amps drops to a low level. The timer can extend sometimes by several hours. This is for 'recombination', where the small amount of gases (hydrogen and oxygen) released during the charge process recombine back into water, which is a long process. The charger should be given enough time for this to complete, maybe not every time it is charged, but at least every so often. The charger on AGM setting will have an extended timed absorption stage, so will probably do that if given the chance.

That's why switching a charger on for an hour or two a day is not a good idea, better to switch on for 8 or 12 hours once a week. Or just leave it on permanently.

For the van battery, I don't know if the charger keeps it trickle-charged, but if it does it should be OK. The trickle-charge feed will be suitable for a standard flooded lead-acid battery. Some motorhomes don't charge the van battery except by manually flipping a panel switch to direct the charge to the selected battery. You could check it is being charged by measuring the voltage. If any battery is over 13.0V then something is charging it.

 

[Boswell Bear]

AGM batteries should have an absorption stage that is extended by a timer, rather than cut off when the amps drops to a low level. The timer can extend sometimes by several hours. This is for 'recombination', where the small amount of gases (hydrogen and oxygen) released during the charge process recombine back into water, which is a long process. The charger should be given enough time for this to complete, maybe not every time it is charged, but at least every so often. The charger on AGM setting will have an extended timed absorption stage, so will probably do that if given the chance.

That's why switching a charger on for an hour or two a day is not a good idea, better to switch on for 8 or 12 hours once a week. Or just leave it on permanently.

For the van battery, I don't know if the charger keeps it trickle-charged, but if it does it should be OK. The trickle-charge feed will be suitable for a standard flooded lead-acid battery. Some motorhomes don't charge the van battery except by manually flipping a panel switch to direct the charge to the selected battery. You could check it is being charged by measuring the voltage. If any battery is over 13.0V then something is charging it.

The charger has 3 settings Lead acid, AGM & Gel.
It does charge the starter battery, I just wondered if it would be a problem as I presume it’s on the AGM setting.

 

[bobandjanie]

We leave our car for 5/6 months in our friends garage, our old corsa we just took a lead off, this old new one has all the bells and whistles so we have a CTEC Battery maintainer and it just does what it should. Bob.

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[autorouter]

The main battery charger output doesn't charge the starter battery directly. According to the manual there is an 'electronic device' between the charger output and the starter battery. I take that to mean there is some limiting trickle charge device, a form of battery maintainer, that outputs a trickle charge of up to 2A to the starter battery. So the starter battery doesn't get the AGM profile applied to it.

 

[AdrianChen]

The main battery charger output doesn't charge the starter battery directly. According to the manual there is an 'electronic device' between the charger output and the starter battery. I take that to mean there is some limiting trickle charge device, a form of battery maintainer, that outputs a trickle charge of up to 2A to the starter battery. So the starter battery doesn't get the AGM profile applied to it.

The charger output will go via the ds300 I think, the DS300 contains a SCR to "share" the charge (when the leisure batt is above 13.6v and the main panel is turned on). I think (Guess) it is the main 70amp SCR that is used, ie it can be closed with either D+ or leisure battery voltage/Panel on. So the two banks are simply paralleled.....

 

[Boswell Bear]

The main battery charger output doesn't charge the starter battery directly. According to the manual there is an 'electronic device' between the charger output and the starter battery. I take that to mean there is some limiting trickle charge device, a form of battery maintainer, that outputs a trickle charge of up to 2A to the starter battery. So the starter battery doesn't get the AGM profile applied to it.

Thank you

 

[Boswell Bear]

The charger output will go via the ds300 I think, the DS300 contains a SCR to "share" the charge (when the leisure batt is above 13.6v and the main panel is turned on). I think (Guess) it is the main 70amp SCR that is used, ie it can be closed with either D+ or leisure battery voltage/Panel on. So the two banks are simply paralleled.....

Cheers, I’ve just found a manual for the DS300

 

[autorouter]

I think (Guess) it is the main 70amp SCR that is used, ie it can be closed with either D+ or leisure battery voltage/Panel on. So the two banks are simply paralleled.....

If it's an SCR then it's not like a relay which has almost zero voltage drop. An SCR drops between 0.7V and 1.8V depending on the size, and a 70A SCR sounds reasonably big to me. So that would drop the charger output from 14.7V to less than 14.0V to the starter battery, which is well below anything that will cause it a problem.

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